Wizards of Waverly Place: Justin
by Thor2000
Summary: Justin takes center stage here as he faces a choice to leave Waverly Place and follow his destiny to attend Hogwarts, leaving Alex behind. This story follows Suite Life: Immortal and explains CSI: Innocence.
1. Chapter 1

Screaming kids echoed from the front veranda at Tribeca Prep. Their roars, screams and calls sent away the birds perching in the trees and the random squirrel trying to forage from the goodies the kids left strewn in the grass before the school. The school had eight hundred and sixty-one students in it and each of them was a story into himself. Monte Rodriguez was on the school's football team to appease his father, but he much rather would like to be a great chef. Angie Lowhorn was the pretty blonde cheerleader who much preferred wearing shorts and wrestling than the dresses her mother made her wear as a little princess. Dean Moriarty was the good-looking rebel surrounded by friends who liked being a rebel if but to disguise is sensitive side. Hopping down out of the bus ahead of Alex Russo, Harper Finkle tossed back her long brown locks and still held on to her youth and childlike personality even as her body and figure made her a woman. She pulled her pack up to her shoulder, started into the school and was lightly brushed aside by the guys chasing Mitch Anderson out the doors to string him up by the flagpole. Mr. Cooper chided the kids he could catch for running. Harper shined her smile to her friends and colleagues looking up to her. She hopped up the stairs to the second floor on her way to her locker, her feet carrying her on past the library where Justin Russo stepped back to avoid her and then came out after she was gone. A few people called Harper by name as she traveled the crowded current of under-achievers, freshmen, true students and future felons to her locker. She twisted out her combination and popped the lock ready to open her locker. By her side, Alex Russo crashed to the her side purposely.

"Harper…" Her rich brown eyes lit up with unbridled mischief and deception. "Guess what?!"

"Justin got the love note I stuck in his locker and has pledged his undying love to me!!!"

"What??" Alex pretended she didn't hear that.

"Nothing!" Harper briefly blushed over her teenage infatuation and pretended to be distracted by something in over over-stuffed locker.

"Harper…" Alex rolled her eyes over that discovery and turned back to her news. "I heard Mrs. Bobbitt went into childbirth during her anniversary dinner with her husband; that means she's out for the rest of the school year!" Alex made a face of sheer excitement.

"Ohhh…" Harper went more for the emotional family side of the story. "Was it a boy or a girl?"

"Who cares?!" Alex rolled her eyes trying to get to the point. "God… I mean, with her out, it means we got a substitute in that class for the rest of the year! No more tests! No more homework! We got a free ride!!! Oh, yeah… oh, yeah…" They were dancing and spinning slowly in place at lockers side.

"Hey!" Harper had an idea. "Could you zap up those shrimp cocktails for us?" She loved having a friend who could do magic!

"Sure!" Alex heard the first warning bell for class. The next one would make them late for class. Alex loved being able to do magic. Her father's family tree was a long lineage of wizards, magicians, witches and sorcerers going back to the days of Ancient Greece. Her father even claimed one of his ancestors was one of the Argonauts while another lost his life at the straits of Charybdis and Scylla from the ship of Odysseus. They had lived through the Roman Empire, fought in the Crusades, sailed with Magellan and even entertained at the court of Queen Victoria. The only problem was that in the Russo family tree, only one sibling was allowed to keep their powers over their brothers and sisters, and the way things were going in her life, Alex was living her life to its fullest while she still could. Harper shoved her things in her locker and turned to make her first class. Alex turned round as a blonde girl turned and glared at them. She looked so familiar to them.

"Since when does Ashley Tisdale go to our school?" Alex asked Harper. The two of them rushed for gym class where they were subjected to the embarrassing ritual of ugly gym clothes and getting pummeled by basketballs. They then had second period biology with Mrs. Odom and her bad jokes. All the while they were looking forward to their snack together in history class, but then they started getting the bad news. Her classmates that had Mrs. Bobbitt's class first period started spreading the news that that the substitute was a hard-nosed, by-the-book, strict disciplinarian. He was a college level professor named William Danvers schooled in Britain with dark brown hair and goatee faintly turning silver with two brown eyes that could stare right through the most lazy lackadaisical student. Alex and Harper shared a look of worry upon the news. Just who hired these teachers?! And why did they hate teenagers so much. With this kind of omen hovering over them, Alex, Harper and their third period classmates wandered into class slowly and afraid. Professor Danvers's reputation was already starting to be felt through the school. Alex and her classmates started sharing rumors and stories shared by their classmates about this new teacher.

"Open your books to page 163…" He returned and marched in to class in a tweed jacket, red sweater, white shirt and dark gray pants, dropped his leather carry case atop the desk and turned to the chalkboard. He introduced himself by writing his name, Professor Danvers, on the board in large bold letters. Everyone reacted at attention, grabbed their history books, settled them to their desks out of unison and started hurriedly trying to find the lesson.

"1194 to 1184 BC, the Dardanian plane was the scene of what historical battle…" Danvers stopped before Alex and pushed her textbook to the table so she couldn't hide behind it. She looked to him, eyes widened and frightened. "Mrs. Russo, identify this conflagration give me a summary and its effects on history in Europe…" Alex's jaw dropped in shock and trembled a bit. Her eyes rolled toward Harper next to her.

"I don't want the answer from Mrs. Finkle, Mrs. Russo, I want it from you." Danvers spoke with a faint British accent. He was confronting her on purpose.

"Um…" Alex had never felt on the spot like this before. "Uh, true?" She got a chuckle from a number of her classmates. Professor Danvers didn't chuckle. He just continued groaning exasperatingly toward her. He glared at her as if she were a spot on his jacket. The class fell quiet as he loomed down toward Alex and peered quite annoyed into her eyes.

"Mrs. Russo…" Danvers continued. "You have been sliding through your classes in this school since you started here. Lazy, shallow and disobedient are not career goals. I will not allow you to be a disruption to the education of others as my predecessor did." He turned away as another student shot his hand up. Alex could only slide deeper into her seat.

"Sir," Pete Granger stood up from the back of class. "You are referring to the Trojan War. That's not historical; that's mythological." He paused a bit. "Besides, we were about to start World War Two today. Mrs. Bobbitt was bringing a movie for us to watch about it."

"It is not mythological!!!" Danvers spun around and dropped a book hard to the floor, ready to pound that info into their brains. "Troy was founded by the Hittites, conquered by the Mysians and surrendered to the Dardanians before finally falling to the Argives. The Trojan War was the turning point from the pagan world to the birth of modern civilization! The Greeks carried the secrets of Egypt and the Middle East across Europe, they laid the foundations of Rome which in turn became the foundation of the Roman Empire which in turn became the basis of modern civilization. We owe everything we have today from music, art and culture and even in-door plumbing to the Romans and to understand the Romans we must start with the Greeks! As far watching a movie today, I have shredded Mrs. Bobbitt's curriculum and am starting anew. I will cram an entire year's lessons into your last five months of school before you started your regular summer vegetation period." He looked again toward Alex. "No one just slides by in my classes. I'm am teaching students, not another generation of under-achievers…" He turned round to the board. Everyone became very nervous and looked at each other scared to death. Mrs. Bobbitt was their favorite teacher; she showed movies every week, gave multiple-choice tests and helped her students to just slide by without teaching them really anything. Professor Danvers meant the death of their free ride. He wanted them to… study!

"Oh, my god!" Harper turned to Alex and mouthed her words silently. "He's a…"

"I am not a psychopath, Mrs. Finkle." Danvers somehow heard her. "Just a teacher getting tired of students not appreciating their education." He jotted several names of the history of Troy on to the board: Agamemnon, Menelaus, Helen, Paris, Achilles, Ajax… He turned round ready to teach. "This week we will be covering the late Pagan Period to the Age of Discovery and discover the why's, what's and what-for's of why humanity turned away from gods and started turning to science. You will study the foundations and links between the great civilizations of man, the events leading to war, the history of industrialization and exploration and be prepared to write a report summarizing why we grew out of the worship of gods and divinities."

There was a collective groan and sound of regret from several students. Something told them that they were not going to see another movie in this class.

"Ah, the sound of underused brains suddenly being forced to work…" Danvers heard a noise and looked behind him. Justin Russo entered the room with a stack of folders and papers in his arms. He dropped them down on to the table by the door. He was grinning excitedly. He looked to his sister rolling her eyes disgustedly tired and already overwhelmed.

"Isn't he great?!" Justin was excited! "Wait till you see the homework assignment! I'm not ever halfway through it yet!"

"Justin," Alex snarled at him with the personality of a pit bull. "What are you doing here?!"

"Your brother offered to be my teaching assistant, Mrs. Russo." Professor Danvers had removed his tweed jacket and draped it over the top of the coat rack in the corner. "Unlike you, he knows what is more important." He stepped aside to allow Justin to pass out the packets. "Now, class, Justin is passing out the schedule and reading assignments for the rest of the school year. We will have tests every Friday on that week's lessons, no more true-or-false or multiple-choice, summary answers only. I will expect reports every Monday covering at least one of the books in my required reading list, and you will each also prepare yourself an oral report on the history, culture and geography of at least one existing or forgotten country. The grade on your oral report will count as forty percent of your final exam from this class."

"Oh… oh…" Harper's hand went up.

"I will be hearing what country you will be covering tomorrow so I can approve them." Professor Danvers answered her question before she asked it. "I will not allow any students to cover the same country twice."

Alex's hand shot up next.

"I am not accepting oral reports on Atlantis." Professor Danvers predicted her question.

"Crud!!!" Alex cursed out loud.


	2. Chapter 2

2

Waverly High School at Tribeca Prep was empty. The random janitor polished the floor, and Principal Laritate gestured a wave good-bye to the coaches as he headed out to head home. The halls were empty, the gym deserted and the school librarian sighed as she locked up the library from the last student who stayed behind to waste her time by using the local Internet to update his Facebook page. Left behind in one of the classrooms, Justin was happily excited. He thought of Professor Danvers as his mentor, the kind of man he wanted to be, but then his grinning face was possibly also from watching his angry sister lug home all those books. Justin graded the last quiz given him and recorded the grade, jostling and straightening them as he stood.

"Sir…" Justin finished his job. "I graded the quizzes from today and recorded the grades for you. I stacked them from the best grades on top to Alex's on the bottom."

"Why did you do that, Justin…?" Danvers didn't look up from his book. He was quite busy writing notes for his lesson tomorrow.

"I'm sorry, sir…" Justin reacted unsure. "Did you want them alphabetized?"

"No," Danvers continued writing. "I meant carry those papers by hand from your desk to my desk."

"What?" Justin was confused. He stepped backward again. "Did you want me to leave them here?" He placed the quizzes on the table next to the main desk.

"No, I meant…" Danvers looked up stoically. "Why didn't you just do this?" He gestured his hand out at full length and coaxed the quizzes into the air. They flew up as if caught in a breeze, flapping and fluttering through the air and then gathering one at a time into a stack in front of him, each paper laying itself atop each other perfectly in the same order as before with the best grade in class up top. Justin's jaw dropped as his professor turned up his secret smile. His eyes were lighting up, his cheeks filling with color. He and Justin had so much more in common than he had thought!

"Oh my god…" Justin looked out the door of the room worriedly to see if anyone had seen than. "You're a wizard!!!"

"Wizard, mystic, sorcerer, magician…" Professor Danvers sat back in his chair uncharacteristically jovial. "My former master was an apprentice to Merlin himself and a close ally to the great Vainamoinen." He stood eager to meet and talk to Justin openly. "Justin, I didn't choose you to be my teaching assistant because you were a great student, I chose you because you are a brilliant student and magician with a great destiny ahead."

"Wow… thank you, sir…" Justin's face spread out with a big grin before it. "But… why are you teaching here? Why aren't you at Wiz-Tech?"

"I taught at Wiz-Tech for seventeen years, and became deeply bored by the job." Danvers picked up an empty silver teapot and poured hot steaming tea from it into a porcelain cup on his desk. He started to offer a cup to Justin, but he gently refused the drink. "I retired to live a quiet life of idyllic serenity traveling around the world, but the American Civil War forced me back to England, and when I returned, I was dismayed to discover that the youth of today no longer appreciated the wisdom of the past, so I returned to being a teacher, trying to prove to the American teenager that education is not worthless knowledge."

"Yeah…" Alex sat backward on the table eager to have this conversation. "I don't think you made a lot of friends today. I better warn you. I think my sister is going to put a curse on you."

"Let her!" Danvers scoffed at the threat. "She's not the first inept witch I've ever encountered to try to hex me." He chuckled as he bobbed his tea bag into his cup.

"Isn't it dangerous to practice magic in public?"

"Justin…" Professor Danvers leaned over to him after setting his tea aside. "Let me tell you the truth. Magicians and wizards have been practicing magic in public for years!" Justin didn't know how to react. Danvers mused secretly and rose to erase his chalkboard. "Now…" He continued. "Contrary to what your father or mentors have told you, there is nothing wrong with practicing magic in public as long as you do it properly. The truth is that people ignore what they don't believe or understand and make up reasons for what they have seen. Magic has actually been used through history from Troy to the Crusades to the American Civil War to the great wars. Napoleon sought advice from witches, and Lincoln had séances in the White House! I mean, we all know there's a dragon in Lock Ness, but the British Academy of Science still denies it." He wiped down his board as Justin helped him. "The 1965 New York black-out? A warlock did that by accident, but the power company blamed it on a one-in-a-million breaker failure. My own daughter flies through Las Vegas wearing a red cape with a big "S" on her chest pretending to be a costumed crime fighter, she's seen by hundreds of people a day and yet no one believes she actually exists!"

"How does she get away with it?"

"Because no one believes anyone can really do what she's doing!" Danvers mused with a grin while showing Justin a photo of her. "The typical man refuses to believe what he does not understand!"

"She looks like Britney Spears!"

"Yes, I know…" Danvers looked back at the photo mumbling. "Don't know how that happened; her mother resembles Kate Winslet." He paused setting the photo aside. "You see, Justin, your father doesn't want you practicing magic in public because he wasn't careful about it when he was your age. He's trying to spare you the lessons of caution he never acquired." He paused to sit down and lean backward in his seat. "So, Justin, how did you like it at Wiz-Tech?"

"I love it there!" Justin lit up smiling. "I just wish I could take the full semester!"

"What if I told you there was a way you could, Justin?" Professor Danvers finished his tea.

"What?"

"Justin…" Danvers set his cup aside, collected his papers into his worn leather case and rose to take his jacket. "Wiz-Tech is a great school, but as much as I love my old colleagues, it produces very mediocre mystics. There are much better schools of magic out there. Mind you, most classes in the arts are sometimes even taught in secret from regular schools across the world, but still, the best schools of magic are the ones solely specializing in the craft, but they are so few and far between." He took his case and turned to the door, pulling the shade down on it. "Would you like to see one of them, Justin?"

"I don't think I can…" Justin checked his watch. "It's almost five, I really should be heading home."

"It'd only take a minute." Professor Danvers coaxed him by waving him over. "And I'll clear it with your father."

"Okay," Justin responded excitedly. "How long could it take?"

"Just a second…" Professor Danvers opened the classroom door not to the deserted hallway of Waverly High School, but to the corridor of another place where students passed by garbed in mystic robes and carrying books on magic. Justin walked through with his eyes shining brightly excited, his jaw dropping not just from that subtle bit of sorcery but also from the sheer grandeur of the location. It looked like Wiz-Tech, but it wasn't! The towers were higher and larger, the yards much greener and brighter and the corridors much more grander and illustrious. This was a place steeped in much more tradition. A random spirit flitted through the vaulted halls. A short goblin-like teacher maneuvered through the students otherwise laughing and doing magic. They brought figurines to life from wands and talked to figures in portraits. A sudden wind blew another student out and down the hall. Justin stepped aside as the miscreant went sliding down the hall.

"Hello, Mrs. Granger? How's Crookshanks?" Professor Danvers said hello to a passing lovely young witch carrying her cat then turned to Justin. "So, Justin, what do you think?"

"It reminds me of Wiz-Tech."

"No, this is not Wiz-Tech…" Professor Danvers led Justin as if he was his son, lightly swaying his briefcase from his other hand. "This is Hogwarts, one of the most exclusive schools of magic located on the Mystic Isle of Britain… This is where a young man of your talent should be attending. This is where your father should have sent you."

"Why didn't he?"

"Possibly because he doesn't know about it…" Professor Danvers mumbled just barely under breath. They walked leisurely through the hall between the courtyard and several classrooms, passing students looking them over and passing them by. One blonde student with a crooked dour grin shot Justin a look and purposely bumped him before wandering away from him. "Hold up, Justin…" Danvers stopped and waved to a group of boys. "Harry! Harry, over here!!" One of the boys looked up. He had brown hair, part of it sticking up in back, and dark round glasses with large brown eyes. His locks of hair were concealing a crooked scar to the side of his forehead he was trying to hide. He grabbed up his books, departed his friends and came up with his face alight with a big welcoming grin.

"Professor Danvers!!!" He beamed to one of his favorite mentors, speaking with a British accent from his breath. "Are you covering the History of Magic again today?"

"No, Harry, I'm afraid I'm just visiting today." Professor Danvers was sorry to disappoint young Potter. "You see… I'm trying to convince young Justin here to transfer to Hogwarts to complete his magic schooling. I was hoping you might be able to convince him."

"Hello, Justin..." Harry and Justin shook hands. "Good to meet you! How do you like Hogwarts?"

"I love it!" Justin reacted unable to suppress his excitement. "I think I'd really like it here!"

"Really?" Harry looked from Professor Danvers then back to Justin. "Do you play quidditch?"

"I…" Justin was afraid of sounding foolish. "I've never heard of it."

"It's great fun!" Harry answered exuberantly, now joined by Ron and Nigel by his side. "It overwhelmed me at first, but I love it." He was gradually scooting away. "Excuse me, but Ron and I are going to be late for Divination!"

"Of course, Harry…." Professor Danvers shined over Harry… such a hard and tumultuous history in the boy and yet so optimistic and out-going. He turned toward Justin and saw some but not all of the same qualities in him. Honest, optimistic and hard working, Justin looked around the hall of moving portraits and tried to hold back his amazement. This place was practically soaked in magic from the stone bricks and masonry, to the wood beams in the ceiling to every portrait and even the decorations around them.

"It's odd that this place reminds me of Wiz-Tech…"

"That's the funny thing about it, Justin." Professor Danvers escorted the young magician along. "Wiz-Tech claims Hogwarts copied them. Hogwarts claims Wiz-Tech copied them. That's one of the idiosyncrasies in the world that even wizards can't figure out, and it applies to the non-magic world as well. I mean, an American entertainer named Madonna sings _Material Girl_ and _Express Yourself_ while another pop star named Isis sings _Immaterial Girl_ and _Impress Yourself_. Did one copy the other or are their parallel lives just coincidence? Was the song _Achy-Breaky Heart_ recorded first by Billy Ray Cyrus or by Robby Ray Stewart? Why do my daughters each resemble a certain pop icon?"

"Why does my sister harbor such hostility for Michayla?" Justin added. The halls had greatly emptied and now it was just the two of them walking through the courtyard.

"Exactly, Justin…" Professor Danvers patted him to the back. "That's one of the reasons you should be coming to Hogwarts; to help add your ability for rational logical thinking to such cosmic riddles such as that! The best I've been able to come up with is that sometimes our reality overlaps with a second less fantastic reality with characters like our own." He stopped before the antechamber and turned to Justin. "What do you say, Justin? Interested in coming to Hogwarts?"

"What about Alex?"

"Your sister would never survive in this school…" Professor Danvers told him the truth. They started to press forward, but someone appeared before them. It was one of the teachers. Tall and slight of frame dressed all in dark with even darker hair cut in the style of the medieval age, he had a perpetual scowl to his white face, a dour expression that expressed his disapproving desire to visitors that appeared in this school without invitation. Justin shuddered in his presence. Professor Danvers just shuffled his case in his hand and stoked his smile toward the figure before them.

"What are you doing back here?"

"Severus, my good friend, how are you doing?" Professor Danvers alighted with good intentions. "How is Minerva? Still enchanting since I last saw her?"

Severus Snape narrowed his eyes toward the two of them.

"You are not my friend…" He responded in a low droning voice. "And you are not allowed here." He looked to Justin. "Who is this?"

"Albus said I was welcome back anytime I cared to visit…" Professor Danvers gestured to Justin. "This is Justin Russo from America. I'm trying to interest him to come to Hogwarts instead of his other magic school."

"We don't accept American students."

"There's no such rule."

"Well, there ought to be!" Snape backed away looking upon Justin disapprovingly. "I told you the last time. I am not friendly nor am I jovial and I do not have any intentions to make myself merry. Hogwarts is not your personal retreat nor are we interested in every student you deem special. We have a very strict code of admission and do not accept anyone who falls outside those perimeters. Take this one and be gone with him." He turned and marched away with a dramatic flourish toward one of the towers.

"Albus still runs this school, Severus." Professor Danvers still firmly supported Justin. He beamed toward him with a strong proud grin as if Justin were his own son. Once Snape was gone, the voices of students moving from class to class echoed from the yard.

"Don't worry about him." He turned to Justin reacting a bit overwhelmed and frightened by that experience. "We really are friends, he just hates to admit it. Severus never could bring himself to admit his feelings." He paused with a pat to Justin's back. "Now, that we've seen Hogwarts, how about we get you home? My wife is expecting me in Paris for dinner to discuss her sister's wedding."

"Who does her sister look like?"

"Weird thing…" Danvers reacted perplexed. "She looks like no one in particular…."


	3. Chapter 3

3

In the Russo family sandwich shop on Waverly Place, Alex sat in one of the booths struggling with her homework. Her book open, papers before her and her hair trussed up to make her look insane, she struggled and fought to rush through her homework. She couldn't get any of her male admirers to do it for her; they all had massive homework assignments from Professor Danvers and couldn't help her anymore. That left Alex to do her work.

"I hate this stuff!" Alex shrieked and griped. "I hate school! I hate my new teacher!" She roared and cursed. Her father stepped away from her in case she started turning green and larger with large superhuman muscles.

"Alex…" Jerry looked upon her. "This is sort of your own fault. You've been sliding through school for so long that the second you have to do any work, you're not prepared for it."

"How is that supposed to help me?" She looked at her father complacently. "Dad, this guy hates me. I think he hates kids. Why else would he be torturing us like this?"

"I only hope he's gone in two years when I'm in the tenth grade." Max had to cover his sister's shift in the restaurant as she did her homework.

"Guys," His mother cleared and wiped down a few tables. "Anyone who wants to be a teacher does not hate kids! If they did, they'd just become prison guards!" She came over to support her daughter. "Lexie, you just do your best." She kissed her head. "What kind of teacher is he?"

"Lousy!" Alex snapped. "It's going to take me hours to copy from Harper!"

"He can't be that bad!" Max looked up. "I hear he has a photo of Britney Spears on his desk!" Alex just put her hand to her forehead and rolled her eyes. It hurt when she tried to think. She had to answer twenty questions connecting the myths of the Greeks, Egyptians and Sumerians with known historical events. The answers were somewhere in her textbook and required reading; there had to be a spell that would do this for her. She just frustratedly and overwhelmingly looked up rubbing her eyes to look around the shop. When she did, she noticed Justin coming into the shop and with him was Professor Danvers. How could that goofy moron bring him home into the shop?!

"Mom! Dad!" Justin rushed inside past their few customers. "I want you to meet Professor William Danvers! He's my new world history teacher!"

"Mister Russo, Mrs. Russo…" Danvers greeted Justin's parents with the honor of proper British custom and charm. He looked aside and noticed Alex; her hair piled wildly on her head, her tired eyes narrowed into an evil sneer, her lips contorted into an angry sneer and her over-wrought fingers gnarled around her short orange pencil. "Goodness, Mrs. Russo…" The sight of her amused him. "Not finished with your homework, yet? I thought you'd have finished it by now considering how light it was!"

Alex just growled a bit and turned back to her first question.

"It's an honor to meet you, professor…" Jerry Russo shook the hand of his son's teacher. "It's not often you find a teacher so concerned with the education of his students."

Alex growled a bit, waiting for some gamma rays to kick in and reveal the level of her anger.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Russo." Professor Danvers laid his case over the stool. Smiling, Theresa Russo offered him some American tea in a Styrofoam white cup. He pleasantly accepted it even though he didn't care much for American instant tea.

"Are you going to be teaching at our school in two more years?" Max asked.

"I certainly hope so!"

"Oh god…" Max now looked scared! He became like a mouse and turned away in fear of a future with Professor Danvers as his teacher!!

"Actually, Mr. Russo…" Professor Danvers sipped the nearly tasteless American tea given him and continued with the main reason with his visit. "I was wishing to speak to you about young Justin. You see, I find him to be a very gifted student, but I don't think he's being challenged academically. I think he should be enrolled at a school matched to his gifts in order to much better challenge him. I would like to sponsor Justin into a school of higher learner to help him reach his full potential."

"Wow!" Theresa and Jerry liked that idea whole-heartedly. Theresa hugged Justin closer, and Jerry proudly patted the boy at the shoulder. "This sounds great!!! What school should you think he should go to?"

"I'd like to transfer Justin from Wiz-Tech to Hogwarts in Britain."

Jerry and Theresa's grins suddenly froze. Alex looked over in shock and Max slid out of the kitchen upon hearing what he had thought he had heard. Did he hear what he thought he had heard?! Danvers knew about them being wizards? Did that mean he was a Wizard?! Was Justin going to leave Waverly Place to attend another school in Europe?

"What?" Jerry finally broke through his shock. Justin was still beaming excitedly. Justin was going to go from where to where?

"Dad, he showed me the campus!" Justin reacted. "It's great. I already made some friends, they play something called quidditch… I mean, sure some of the teachers are a little creepy, but I think it's so cool there! Can I go?"

"My baby going to school in another country?" Theresa hugged her son closer. "Oh, Justin, I don't know…"

"Uh, professor…" Realizing the sort of teacher that Professor Danvers was, Jerry looked around his shop of dining patrons and silently mumbled. "Isn't it a bit dangerous to be discussing magic in front of…. Well, non-magicks…"

"Why not?" Danvers turned to the room behind him. "Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Professor William Danvers, I am 357 years old and I practice magic. Does anyone want to see me conjure a dragon?" He spoke outward and openly to the room. He got a few eye rolls, looks of idiocy and a few blank stares as people finished their sandwiches. Danvers turned back to Jerry.

"You see… they don't care." He explained. "All people care about is one thing: themselves."

"You don't mind people thinking you are a lunatic?"

"The only thing worse than being thought of being considered a lunatic is actually being one." Professor Danvers was very scholarly and wise in his observations of the human condition. "Mr. Russo, Justin is not being stimulated as a student. How far can he get if he is not encouraged to go beyond his limits? Now, I don't mean to undermine your authority as a parent, but I really do care about seeing Justin being as much as he possibly can. Don't you care to see your son be the very best he can be?"

"Well, of course, I care…" Jerry looked to his boy and back. "But what about Alex? She deserves the same kind of schooling as her brothers."

"Why are you bringing me into this?" Alex moved in to the conversation.

"Mr. Russo…" Professor Danvers palmed his goatee a bit and looked to Alex standing by him. "I have observed your daughter today, and she is already about as far as she is going to get." He looked to Alex. "Without discipline and direction, she is going to be the exact same thing she already is for the rest of her life: just another pretty face and a disaster in the making. Should she become a full wizard… she will bring misfortune to herself and everyone around her. I am more interested in guiding Justin to be all he can be. Surely you won't stand in his way?"

"Well, of course not…" Jerry sighed a bit and looked to his wife. Justin cheered a bit under his breath. "Both Theresa and I want the very best for Justin… For all our kids."

"Excellent!" Danvers sipped the last of the tea and thanked Theresa for being such a gracious hostess. "I'm sure Justin will enjoy Hogwarts very much, and as far as Alex… Well, I'll submit her name as well, just to see what will happen."

"What? Why are you dragging me into this?" She was not crazy about how this was progressing.

"If you'll excuse me," Danvers collected his satchel case again. "I must go join my wife in Paris." He shook Jerry's hand and kissed Theresa's hand. She glowed from his aristocratic Old World personality.

"But you'll never make it!"

"Of course, I will; it's just out your other door." He opened the other door in the side of the shop where the image of the Champs-de-Mars appeared with the Eiffel Tower in the background. One of the dining patrons looked up, noticed the image then sniffed his soda to see if it had been spiked with liquor.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Whenever Harper was running late to school, she always grabbed the bus, but otherwise, she almost always walked it, picking up Alex on her way. This morning, she was running late again and riding the bus alone and looking for Alex along the route to school. The ride took her along Waverly Place and pulled into the courtyard in front of the school where the buses pulled in and spewed their kids one at a time at the front entrance. Once again a creature of habit, Harper yawned tiredly and ambled into school still partially asleep. She meandered upstairs to her locker ready to start another day.

"Harper!" Alex was waiting for her. "I need to copy your World History homework! I never got past question number three!"

"I never got past question number seven!" Harper groaned and yawned. "I fell asleep at the kitchen table." She turned to her locker pulling things out for first period gym. "Alex, you're a wizard. Don't you have a spell for this?"

"I wish it didn't have to come to this, but… I guess I'm going to have to." Alex looked around pulling her wand from her boot. "Cover me will you?" Harper stood in front of Alex pulling out her homework and Harper's and waving her wand to them. She thought up a practical incantation. "So I don't have to look, take the answers we need from the book!" There was a puff of smoke and several students looked to see what had exploded. Alex and Harper started waving away the smoke hurriedly so it didn't look like they were smoking or doing weed. When they looked at their worksheets, the answers failed to appear, but large glowing words instead appeared to them:

"Nice try, Mrs. Russo!"

"Crap-and-a-half!!!" Alex's jaw dropped in shock. "He enchanted the worksheets!!! They're cheat-proof! What kind of teacher does that?!!!"

"Alex…" Harper was a bit confused upon seeing that mystical message fading away from her work. "What was that? What's going on?"

"Professor Danvers is also a wizard." Alex revealed, and Harper reacted stunned. "A very powerful one! He's got this thing against kids who try to slack their way through their education… Whatever that means…" She pouted a bit and tossed her long hair back as she leaned against the lockers. "He's also trying to transfer Justin to a year-round magic school…."

"What?" Harper did not like that last part.

"He's trying to help Justin go to another school for magic for the entire school year." Alex confessed. Harper's face went into terrified shock. She couldn't let that happen!

"Justin can't go!!!" She shrieked. "I'm carrying his baby!!!"

Everyone in the hall stopped and looked at them. They all knew something was a bit odd about Alex and something very weird about Harper, but these random outbursts always seemed to perpetuate the rumors about the two.

"What?!!!" Alex's eyes went into shock!

"Well, not literally!!!" Harper explained herself. "I mean… last year I started writing a story in my journal about what it would be like to date Justin… and then I started describing our courtship, our marriage, our honeymoon and before I knew it, we were starting a family. I'm thinking of naming it Justin Jr. if it's a boy or Alex if it's a girl…"

"Harper…" Alex was starting to think of a few names too. "You know, sometimes you really worry me…. Come on, with Justin gone, I can knock down a wall, extend my closet, put in another bed for you to stay with me…" Harper made a face and grabbed Alex by the neck and lifted her off her feet against the lockers.

"Alex, one way or another you got to keep Justin from attending that school!!!" She snarled a bit, unwilling to let the love of her life leave her. "Sabotage him if you have to, but don't let him go away! Do you hear me?!!"

"Harper…" Alex started choking as her feet tried to reach the floor. "Can't breath here…" Her eyes started rolling back from lack of oxygen. She struggled against Harper's grasp; the brown-haired fury with the heavy heart finally let got and Alex dropped to the floor. The brunette sorceress almost swooned from the lack of oxygen to her brain.

"Sorry, Alex… Guess I forgot how strong I am…" She apologized a bit. "Please stop Justin from leaving! I can't live without him. I'd die without him!" She held her belly a bit. "I don't want little Justin or Alex to not know their daddy!"

"O-kay…" Alex responded nervously as the bell rang. With that noise, they dashed side-by-side to the girls' locker room to change for gym before Mrs. Pryde counted them as tardy. It was a day of calisthenics and running today. In Biology, Mrs. Odom lectured and gave the notes that her kids needed to know to pass the course, even going as far as telling them what they needed to know to pass their test, but she herself liked Professor Danvers teaching methods. She agreed the kids weren't learning anything but were just spewing forth what they were force-fed. She'd have to start teaching again, but it meant a lot of hard work. It was then off to World History for Harper and Alex and like the majority of class, they were ill prepared. Harper arrived and noticed Justin in the room.

"Justin," She looked to him with her heart breaking. "Are you really going to start attending another school?" Her face was just so sad.

"I'm thinking about it." Justin was animated and excited about it. "I think it's a great opportunity!" He continued passing out the graded quizzes from yesterday that everyone could see their grades. Harper just whined a bit, her heart sinking lower and lower as she took her seat. Looking over to Alex, Harper began gritting her teeth, upset enough to chew nails if Alex didn't fix that! Alex looked at the possessed nature of her best friend's face and wondered what she was going to do. She actually wanted Justin to go!

"Turn to page 163 again…" Professor Danvers entered the room today in a stoic brown sweater, white shirt and dark brown khakis. "Pull out your homework…" He looked over to Alex with a little smile knowing what she had tried to do. "Who here did not finish the homework last night?"

Thirteen of the twenty-five kids in the class held their hands up. Harper held her hand up and looked to Alex. Alex rolling her eyes and raising her hand made it fourteen of the twenty-five with incomplete homework. Justin smugly looked over the room.

"I see…" Professor Danvers scanned the room. "Well, I'm sorry it was so difficult, but I guarantee you, once you catch up it gets easier…" He turned to the board and started teaching. "Now, in the records of Canterbury, Geoffrey identified this region as Avalon once known as Albion to the Greeks, named for a barbarian king overthrown by Hercules in the Thirteenth Century BC. What is this region?"

Harper was among the three who stuck their hands up.

"Mrs. Finkle?"

"England." That was the one answer she got. "According to the _Annals of British Kings_, Hercules overthrew the ruler of the Celts, opening the way for the Greeks and the Roman Empire to lay early claims to Britain two millennia before the Saxons finally claimed the islands and became ancestors of the kings of modern England."

"Excellent!" Professor Danvers wrote Britain on the board, circling it and connected it with Greece already connected to Rome already circled. Harper lit up with a smile and looked to Alex who was not impressed at all. All Alex could do was sink even lower into boredom. She usually had Harper keeping her afloat, but now, she didn't even have her. She turned her eyes to the door of the classroom and gazed out the window to the hall to the blonde student coming closer and closer. She looked so much like a certain blonde Disney Channel actress in the TV Series with the two twins, the same one with the movie with the singing basketball player and female geek. Alex narrowed her eyes as she came upon the room, opened the door and entered the classroom. Professor Danvers looked up to her.

"Hi daddy!!!"

"Samantha, dear…" Danvers turned to the room. "Class, my daughter will be joining us here. Please treat her as well as you treat yourselves or at least a bit better." Samantha looked back upon Alex with the demeanor of a pampered princess. She knew Alex was a female wizard; Alex knew she had to be a female sorceress. Samantha took her books and sat in the front seat next to Harper and pulled out her notebook to take notes, extending her legs under her desk. She immediately enchanted all the guys and among them was Justin. Harper noticed it and broke her pencil in her hand.

"You know…" Justin turned toward her as her father lectured. "You look so familiar…" He immediately thought of a certain candy counter girl he had met up from a hotel in Boston.

"I know…" Samantha cooed silently. "Everyone says I look exactly like Ashley Tisdale from _High School Musical_!!!" She grinned effervescently. Using her magic, she had zapped herself a few times into the actress's life for kissing dates with Zac Efron and Corbin Bleu.

Justin stepped back a bit trying to keep from mooning too much over his mentor's daughter. Harper was watching them both growing jealous by the minute! Professor Danvers lectured a bit further about the Greek colonies beyond modern Greece in the ancient world and their contributions to the modern countries in those regions. As he lectured, his classmates finished their homework, filling in their missing answers. It did prove easier to have the questions discussed and then write down the answers as they were covered orally. Danvers than gave the class the last ten minutes of time to cover their required reading. Contrary to her habits, even Alex was getting into the subject and ended up studying. In that time, Justin had graded more papers and leaned into Professor Danvers.

"Why does your daughter look like Ashley Tisdale?"

"Probably because her older sisters look like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson." Danvers didn't look up. He was preparing another lecture before looking back to Justin. "Justin, if you can give me a reason why it happens, I'd love to hear it." Personally, he sometimes felt his life was a TV series on the Disney Channel.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Alex was a bit late coming home while dragging her school books with her. The boys that sometimes did her homework for her had their own homework to cover, and the worksheets she had were enchanted so she couldn't cheat. She just had to do the work herself, and whether she wanted to or not, she just had to do it herself. After all, the curse she tried to levy upon Professor Danvers didn't work. He redirected it back on her and turned her own hair green for twenty minutes.

"A lot of homework?" Theresa looked round a customer to her daughter dragging her book bag behind her.

"No…" Alex turned snotty. "I decided to start working out and I'm getting started by dragging eight books around with me." She started swearing the same dirty word over and over and over again under her breath. Justin looked over her from the sandwich counter. He'd offer to help, after all, that was in his nature, but he also knew it was Alex's nature to refuse his help.

"Oh, god…" She grieved over the way things were going. "Justin, help me…." That was harder than she thought.

"I'm here." He placed a sandwich order in the kitchen window for his father and slipped out from behind the counter to help his sister up to the loft. Her pack was heavier than he thought. He nearly threw his back out lifting it, but after using his legs, nearly toppling over and falling over, he hoisted it up the spiral staircase to the loft.

"What do you have in here?" He peeked into her bag. "Wait a second!" He found two copies of the same textbook, her math book, an old advanced calculus book and a dictionary from the school library. "You added some extra books to this to get some pity! I can't believe you'd sink that low!"

"So what…" Alex spun around to him. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Alex…"

"Justin, you've got to help me!" Alex pouted and whined her way toward the refrigerator to get herself a bottle of water. "This studying thing is so not me! You've got to tell Professor Danvers to lay off. He's killing me. I can't be with Dean because I'm up late doing homework!"

"Why would I do that?" Justin didn't get her at all. "I think he's great! Because of him, I learned Switzerland was a Celtic territory; I always thought it was German!"

"Justin, I need help here!!!"

"Okay…" Justin reverted to his bad habit of being helpful. "Look, I'll loan you the notes I've been taking in class." He ambled over to the sofa where he had left his schoolbooks. "All you got to do is copy the right answers." He started fearing how she was going to survive should he leave to attend Hogwarts. "As far as your oral report, do you have a country yet?"

"Oh, I'm covering mine on Latveria." Alex suddenly remembered and lightly beamed thinking she was being clever. "It's tiny, it's small, and it has less than two hundred years of history."

"You know he still has to approve it."

"What's to approve?" Alex thought she had the easiest way to a grade "It's a real country!"

"Well…" Justin looked her over. "You have world history third period, and he'll have two classes before you show up. I kind of think he'll have a hundred other under-achievers grabbing up all the easy countries first." Justin smirked a bit. "I'm going to be covering Mexico; did you know some of us are direct ancestors of the Aztecs?"

"Did you know some of us are direct ancestors of the geeks?" Alex once again came up with a line to undermine her brother's self-worth. Sometimes, he wanted to slap her into the next world.

"You know you slammed yourself there too, don't you?"

"Yeah, I'm getting rusty…"

"Here…" Justin picked up one of his sister's required reading books and thumbed through the book. "This is a good one. Lemuria… it's a real country, it existed for less than five hundred years before it was devastated, and I guarantee you that hardly any one has ever heard of it. I also recommend you start knocking out your schoolwork in study hall while you're talking to Harper. Trust me, it knocks out much of what you bring home."

"Justin, thank you!" Alex lit up with a grin to her face. "This helps me so much, but you know what would help me the most? If you did it for me?"

"Nice try!!!" He laughed at her. "I'm already covering your shift in the shop!" He raced back down the spiral staircase and left her to do her work. Max was coming up at the same time. Toting his own load of homework, he sighed and reared his pack over as Alex looked over to him.

"Max…" She grinned to him. "How would you like to…"

"I'm not doing your homework!!!" He stopped her there. "I've got two years to worry about getting Professor Danvers, I don't need to deal with him now."

"How did you know I was going to get you to do my homework?"

"Because when I started up the stairs, mom said, "Don't let your sister trick you into doing her homework!"" Max pulled out his math workbook to get started.

"She always one step ahead of me!!!" Alex cursed out loud. Justin had helped her, but not far enough. Sighing a bit, she sat at the coffee table and got started using Justin's notes, being sure not to copy them exactly. Max finished ahead of her of course, but she was still going as her mother came up to start dinner for the family. The autumn skies started getting dark, the sun even further away as afternoon turned to dusk. Alex cheered to finish copying the last answer. That was an hour and half she had well wasted!

"Homework done!!!" She felt proud and even cheered herself.

"Very good, honey…" Jerry looked over her. "Did you start on your oral report?"

"Dad…" Alex looked from him to her mother. "I don't have to do that for a long time!"

Justin looked over to Max.

"She's still going to be in school when you reach the tenth grade." He told her.

"She's still going to be in school when my future kids reach the tenth grade!!" Max added. By his side, the door to the patio outside the loft opened up as a breeze blew in. As Jerry looked at it, Theresa stepped over to close it, and a large regal white owl flew into the room from the open balcony. Snowy white with piercing yellow eyes, it landed on the sofa of the loft and dropped two letters of admission, looked to Jerry and around the room. Max wanted it immediately as a pet, but it flapped its wings fervently and jumped into the air and was off flying away again out of the room and out the door to the loft, vanishing over the horizon. Theresa reclosed the door to their exterior balcony.

"Well, that's something you rarely see." She commented a bit puzzled. Jerry took up the two letters sealed with the wax seal of the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and looked to the names on them. One of them was addressed simply to "Master Justin Russo, 1356 Waverly Place, New York City, America" and the other was addressed to Alexis Russo at the same address.

"Kids…" Jerry reacted a bit. "The… owl came?" Justin and Alex scampered over as Max looked around for his owl letter. Justin ripped open his letter and read it. Alex tore open her envelope and read it as well.

"Dad!" Justin jumped excitedly after reading his letter. "My letter of recommendation was accepted!! The dean of admissions wants to meet me for an interview! I can't wait to tell Harry and Ron!"

"What the heck is this?!" Alex looked shocked. "I've got an interview???? Well, that's one interview I'm going to try hard to screw up on purpose!!"

"Didn't I get a letter?" Max was scrutinizing and searching the floor. "Hey, owl! You forgot something!!!" He yelled out the direction of the windows. Jerry came over and looked at Justin's letter and then looked at Alex's. Both of the letters were done in Old World type as if printed on an antique printer.

"Justin, I'm so proud for you!" He spun round to Alex. "You, little lady, are going to start buckling down and studying. There is no reason in the world you can't have all the same benefits as your brother!"

"Uh, of course, there is." She looked back at him. "I hate school! All those classes and lessons get in the way of the important stuff like boys and shopping! I only go there to get my messages!"

"Alex!!!"

"Dad," She pined her heart out to him. "Please, I'm not exactly crazy about Wiz-Tech, and something tells me I won't be happy at Hogwarts. Please don't make me go!"

"But, sweetheart…" Theresa came over and embraced her daughter. "If Justin goes, it will be just be you and Max here. Won't you miss your brother?"

"Not especially…" Alex was so interested in living the life of an only child.

"Give me Alex's letter!" Max grabbed up the letter. "Look, Justin can turn me into a girl and…." Already he started seeing this was not a good idea. "On second thought, I can change my name to Alex, go with Justin…."

"We're not changing names or brothers into sisters here!" Jerry shook his head and returned Alex's letter to her. "Alex, Hogwarts appears to be a very good magic school and if Professor Danvers can get you and Justin in, I think you ought to go there! End of discussion!"

"What about what I want?!!!!" Alex snapped and turned round to the spiral staircase. She stomped her way up to the third floor and was seconds later slamming her bedroom door. Jerry could only gasp and Theresa waited for him to say something. Justin made a face and looked to Max.

"Okay…" He started with his brother. "I'll call you Alex… short for Alexander. Now, in Quidditch, there's several positions and four balls including a small ball called a…" His father swatted him with a pillow from off the sofa.


	6. Chapter 6

6

"Hi, Harper!" Theresa was chopping vegetables in the sandwich shop when she looked up to her daughter's best friend, a young lady she loved as much as her own daughter… possibly because for a brief time Harper was briefly and mystically her daughter. The young lady came in through the shop looking for Alex.

"Hi, Mrs. Russo…" Harper stole a mushroom from the cutting board. "Where's Alex?"

"Oh, honey…" Theresa continued chopping mushrooms then started dicing onions. "She's up in her room depressed. She thinks Jerry and I are trying to get rid of her, but all we want is the best for her. This school Justin is going to sounds so good for her!"

"You mean that school in England?" Harper had heard of it from Alex. "Justin isn't really going to that, is he?"

"Well," Theresa took another onion to chop. "It sounds like a really good school…." Harper's eyes widened in shock and she started hyperventilating. First Justin, and now, her best friend?? Everyone was leaving her?!!!

"Harper, honey! Breath! Breath!!!" Theresa started shaking and lightly patting Harper on the back. "Harper!"

"Oh, god!!!" Harper moaned upset. "Mrs. Russo, please don't send Justin and Alex away!!! I don't want them to go!"

"But, honey…" Theresa took Harper aside to one of the tables and sat down with her. "Justin really wants to go, and Alex, well, she might not even get in her with her grades, but even if she did… you'd still make new friends."

Harper just silently shook her head. She knew otherwise.

"Oh, honey… I mean, you're smart, pretty…"

Harper made a face as if she wanted proof of that.

"Mrs. Russo…" The girl finally continued. "I'm not exactly what you would call…. Regular. I mean… some of my classmates kind of treat me as if I'm eccentric."

"No…." Theresa tried to sound convincing, but she had noticed it herself. Harper just nodded her head. She was after all the first girl Theresa had known to try turning food into clothing, make jewelry out of trash and to dress like a giant preschooler. In fact, it all sort of started in preschool when Alex first escaped kindergarten. Alex wanted to go to the playground and Harper had tried to disguise herself as a bush with leaves out of green paper. She was not exactly subtle.

"Mrs. Russo…" Harper tried to continue. "You see… Alex is like me. She's special. I create things from objects lying around, and she knows magic. We're both different. There's no one like us. We need each other. I need her."

"Harper, honey…" Theresa looked upon the young lady. "I know you'd miss Alex very much, but… to tell the truth, I think Justin has a much better chance of getting in than her. I love Alex very much, but even I know she's gets a little loco." She mixed her English and Spanish.

Harper looked over to her and realized she might be getting worried over nothing.

"Why don't you go on up and try cheering Alex up?" Theresa stroked Harper's long hair a bit. "She's been upset since she got her letter from the school."

"You're right, Mrs. Russo!" Harper stood up with a new mission. "I haven't lost Alex yet! We've got a lot of work to do! One way or another, Alex and I have got to stop Justin from going to that school!" Harper declared out loud while holding her fictional pregnancy. "There's no way I can let the father of my baby go away!"

Theresa looked up in shock. What did she say?! Did Harper mean that literally?! Confused and upset, she tried to stop her to ask her about it as Harper raced up to the loft. Growing a bit light-headed, Theresa fainted behind the sandwich counter from the mere idea of being a grandmother! Above her head, Harper scurried up the spiral staircase to the loft and on up to the third floor bedrooms. Justin's room had the poster of Yoda from _Star Wars _on the door. Alex's room had the _Do Not Enter_ poster with the skull and crossbones. Knocking lightly as she turned the doorknob, she entered the room slowly while looking around. Alex was quiet and surly looking at an old fashion magazine, using a marker to black out the teeth of Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. She looked up to Harper silently depressed.

"Hey, Alex…" One of them spoke. "Your mother said you was up here."

"Did she?" Alex raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. "I thought she'd be busy planning my wardrobe for tomorrow." She stirred herself up, swinging her legs out and sitting on the edge of the bed. Harper came by her and sat to her right side.

"Oh, come on, Alex…" Harper draped her arm over Alex's back. "Your parents are a lot more cooler than you think. I mean, they must be… you've been in trouble like a million times and they've yet to consider sending you to Catholic school like London Tipton's father did to her!" Harper was a big London Tipton fan; she collected every magazine article she could get on the vacuous heiress. Alex just scoffed, shaking her head and rising to her feet, insecurely twisting a scrap of paper in her hands. Harper looked up and noticed Justin's photo in Alex's dartboard.

"Harper, you just don't get it…" Alex bared her soul. "I'm struggling in school and trying to exist in Justin's shadow. I can't live up to his expectations even as he keeps increasing the bar. I don't care if he aces a test, becomes the teacher's pet or wins the good conduct medal, but I have to draw the line to getting dragged along with him to some stupid school I don't even know where! I just want to be left alone. I'm always just going to be… Justin's little sister."

"Alex…" Harper stood up herself and confronted her best friend. "Do you recall that spell last year that forced us to switch places and I was Justin's sister and you weren't." She actually had few memories about it, but Alex had explained it to her after revealing her powers to Harper. "When I woke up from that, you told me that I was special because you were my best friend. Well, Alex, you're special because you're my best friend."

"Thanks, Harper…" Alex forced a light grin. "I guess I needed that." They hugged closer than sisters.

"And as my best friend…" Harper changed emotions and paced around Alex. "We've got to stop Justin from going to that other school. We're going to have to sabotage his chances. First off, where is this place? Canada?"

"I don't know." Alex confessed.

"Well, ask Justin!" Harper tugged Alex toward Justin's room. "Where is he? Let's go ask him!"

"He's not here right now."

"Where's Justin?" Harper's left eyebrow went up worried.

"Who cares?"

"Alex…"

"Okay…" Alex rolled her eyes. "He's spending time with his new friends."

"What new friends?" Harper reacted a bit worried.

Across the pond in the region of the Scottish Highlands around Hogsmeade, Justin gripped his broom tightly as Harry came up alongside him then Hermione came up along his other side. Ron and Nigel were bringing up the rear as they dipped down and around the treetops of the Dark Forest and then sailed across the currents of the winds around them. Beneath them, centaurs presiding in the hidden glen raced through the woods, and a few dark shadows flitted back underground. Justin was howling and screaming excitedly just before dipping down over the lake and just coming close to skimming the surface, his fingers extended to trace his outline through the water. Under the water, the large water kelpie looked up curious to their shapes flitting over the water surface. Harry's broom was a bit more powerful, enabling him to go faster and cover much more aerodynamic feats such as shooting up at a moment's notice and veering through short turns. It was all Hermione could do to keep up with him. With even Ron and Nigel shooting past him, Justin scoffed and tried to catch up with them, shooting over Hagrid heading from his hut on the campus grounds and shooting toward a certain sentient tree.

"Justin!!!" Harry stopped, hovered and screamed to him. "Stop! That's the…"

"Whomping Willow!!!" Hermione called too.

"Good grief!!!" Justin had his broom yanked out from under him and went sailing without it into the ground. Hagrid reached up and caught him from smacking into the walls around Hogwarts and possibly incurring serious injury. Justin looked into the face of the gentle giant holding him.

"Mister Russo…" Hagrid mused a bit. "Welcome to Hogwarts…"


	7. Chapter 7

7

When school let out, Alex usually raced home as fast as possible, but this time, she was waylaid a bit. When she opened her locker, it had exploded, covering her face and chest with bright green paste. She peeled it from her eyes, and looked around to see who her nemesis was. It was usually Gigi Daniels, the stuck-up princess with whom she was usually feuding with, but beyond her, she noticed Samantha proudly taking credit by waving hello to her from afar. She was grinning ear-to-ear enjoying the spectacle of laughing classmates and public embarrassment. Harper handed Alex tissue after tissue to clean up, but it just wasn't enough. This was a job meant for the ladies room.

"Alex…" Harper was helping her clean her face, hair and shirt. "What can you do? She knows magic too. She's like Gigi… with magic!"

"I know…" Alex had the stuff out of her face. "But I've still got some tricks up my sleeve. If she wants a war, I'm going to give her a war." Alex turned on the water at the tap, but it somehow exploded as well. The tap flew off and Alex was dosed in the face by a torrent of water. Drenched head to toe, she and Harper scrambled to turn it off. Once it was off, Alex was soaking wet and Harper just a little bit so. The brunette diva was gasping for air tiredly, her hostility growing and growing.

"I'm going to kill her!!!" Her eyes were livid. She was going to pull Samantha's blonde hair by the brown roots! Harper looked concerned, started to say something and then realized she should be close to Alex. There were not a lot of kids left in the school but an isolated few. Even most of the staff and faculty were in a hurry to get home. Sloshing and squishing, Alex reared her wet mane of hair back and stomped out ready to take care of business. Waiting for her father to return to his classroom, Samantha used an emery board on her fingernails and blew the dust off as Alex came up to her sloshing and splashing filled with water. She looked back to the wet brunette female wizard trying to hold back her amusement.

"Alex," She responded innocently. "It looks like you had an accident. What happened? Was it raining in the ladies room?"

"No," Harper answered. "The faucet exploded!"

"Get off it, Samantha!" Alex hissed shivering wet and cold. "I know you did it!!! You're the only other wizard I know of in this school!!!"

"Not really…" Samantha filed her fingernails. "You see, wizards use wands, sorcerers don't. There is a difference." She blew the dust off her fingers again. "Would you like me to help blow you off?"

"No, I…" Alex started talking just as a wind rushed down the hall blowing around paper and dust, turning over waste receptacles and stirring up the school hall. Alex was knocked off her feet and sent sliding down the hall on her stomach. Spinning over to her back, she tumbled and rolled past Harper holding on to the water fountain. The energy used to conjure the wind abated and Alex groaned looking up to Samantha coming toward her. Plucky and brave, Harper tried to come to the rescue.

"You leave her alone!" She tried to take a swat at Samantha, but the blonde sorceress gestured to pop open a locker. Harper got pulled to the back of it slamming shut on her. In her fifty-eight years of existence, Samantha had been tossed out of three magic schools, seventeen private schools, a hundred and twelve public schools and even military school for behavior problems. She'd been stripped of her powers eleven times, and yet, her ego was still beyond control, quite unlike her older sisters who were actually reputable.

"Okay, little Miss Used-to-be…" Samantha faced off against Alex on the floor of the school foyer. "Here's what I know… whatever school my daddy drags me to, my word is law, and if I want something, I usually get it. That means status, popularity and boys…" She walked around Alex with attitude. "Now, I like Dean Moriarty. I think he's cuter than my last boyfriend… the one I didn't turn into a mouse! I'm going to let him date me."

"I don't think so, blondie…" Alex and Samantha walked circles around each other. "I've been seeing Dean for over five weeks, and I'm finally got him where I want him. I don't think he's going to have much time for you."

"Think about it, Alex…" Samantha narrowed her brown eyes to Alex. "You can make this easy, or make it really hard."

"Oh…" Alex whipped her wand out. "Here's the easy way… Momentus Projectus!!!" She hurled a volume of concussive mystical energy at Samantha that sent her flying backward several feet through the door of an empty classroom. She toppled over the top of a desk, knocking everything off it and off the other end to the floor. Watching from the slits of the locker she was stuck in, Harper stood amazed and fascinated to be watching this. Alex stood giggling and enjoying herself as the blonde diva lifted herself up from that sneak attack. She adjusted her hair and fixed her sweater.

"My daddy says wands and spells are like training wheels." She spoke as Alex waited for her to whip out a wand. "You don't need them at all!" She hurled her hand forward as the poltergeist energy peeled through the air and sent Alex flying backward through the air. She tore down the school banner trying to stop her fall, landed on the stairs under her and tumbled head over back to the bottom. Her hair draped over her face, Alex scrambled achingly to lift herself up to her feet. She extended her wand forward; it was broken!!!

"Crud!!!" She looked up to Samantha coming after her.

"Oh, what happened?" Samantha did baby talk. "Did you break your little toy?"

"Edgebonoutosis!!!" Alex screamed and split into three clones. Two of her counterparts knocked down Samantha and started pummeling her over and over, beating and hitting her in the face and chest. Lifting herself up, Alex tried to reattach her wand together. She needed tape! She looked up to the office down the hall. The secretary was talking on the phone covering messages without knowing what was going on. Alex hobbled over as one of her clones sailed over her head, bounced off the stairway to the second floor and shattered against the floor into dust. She looked behind her as her other clone was turned into a mouse. Alex reached for the office door and was knocked off her feet, sliding past Harper kicking and screaming inside the locker and through the doors of the gym at the center of the school. The two halves of her wand went in different directions. Samantha reached at her from several feet away and levitated her high up into the air over the second floor balcony.

"Hey, Alex…" Samantha pointed her finger at Alex high up the air over the gym floor. "How long do I have to shake you before you throw up?" She loved this! She hadn't had a fight like this since she fought with her sister Angelique over stealing her clothes! She started bouncing Alex up and down upside-down in the air!

"Poseidon's net is slippery when wet!!!" Alex gestured from out of the air; she had used that spell to flood her brother from his room. On the gym floor, Samantha slipped and fell backward on her back when the floor became covered with water, and without her holding Alex up, Alex hit the gym floor hard with her shoulder. Hissing and sneering through her teeth, Samantha tried getting back on her feet, but she was slipping and falling in the water on the waxed floor. In the hall, Harper finally kicked the locker open and started rushing toward the direction she had seen Alex flying. Out the corner of her eye, she noticed Alex coming after her and then the untouched gym doors psychokinetically swinging shut between them. Alex raced to get through those doors, but she didn't make it. She and Harper started pounding at the doors between them to get them open.

"Harper!!!" Alex pounded through the gym doors. "Get Professor Danvers!!! He's in a meeting with the principal!!!!"

"I'll get him!!!" Harper wasn't sure where that was. He started toward the cafeteria then the library and spun round to check with the office. In the gym, Alex pounded and kicked trying to escape the gym then realized the other doors to the boys' locker room. She'd have to risk it! Her feet turned her round and she ran straight into Samantha waiting for her. The hostile and soaked sorceress was breathing harder and harder; she had the face of a certain blonde singing Albuquerque heiress without mystical powers. Alex started inching along the wall.

"You like water, Alex? Do you like water?!" She was livid! Not even her sisters managed to hold out this long before screaming for their mother. "How about Houdini's Water Escape!!!" Her hands reached out and shaped an invisible box at the same time the floor jumped up and enclosed around Alex and wrapped over her as a glass-sided coffin full of water. The sixteen-year-old brunette female wizard screamed briefly as her mouth filled with water. Submerged, trapped underwater and closed up in a glass coffin, she tried calling out for help but there was just too much water! Samantha had transmuted the wood floor into a glass and a metal frame, the water in it redirected from a nearby pipe. Outside the glass, Samantha coldly watched Alex fighting for air, kicking at the glass trying to escape. Bubbles and churning water around her, Alex pounded and kicked at the sides trying to escape the glass coffin. Drowning in water, she couldn't call out any spells, and without experience, she couldn't gesture the spells she wanted. She was going to drown in this thing!! Samantha was sadistically going to bring her to the brink of death and then free her just to prove who was the greater mystic! Her face contorted with fear and shock, Alex churned and fought to free herself, her mind starting to drift off from the lack of oxygen to her mortal brain, her fingertips pressed to the inside. Samantha lightly smiled to see Alex drowning inside the glass case. Gradually the fighting and clawing started slowing down, and the young brunette diva's face became serene, lightly falling forward as she floated in the water. She was drowning as her mind started drifting away… Several bubbles floated from her lips… Where was Harper with Professor Danvers?!!

"Expellus Shatterus!!!" Both the casket and a gym skylight exploded with mystical force, Justin sailing into the gym on a broom, waving his wand furiously and his determined expression ablaze with concern. His Hogwarts gown flailing around him, he zapped Samantha out of his way as she spun round to him. "Freezus Plastericus!!!" The water casket had shattered with the window from his first spell, sending water and debris around the gym as Justin jumped from off his broom and rushed past Samantha through the flood of water resonating across the floor to rescue his sister. Hoping Harry would understand him bailing on their practice Quidditch match, he sloshed through the water and shattered glass and lifted up his sister's limp body up over his shoulder, shaking her violently to get her breathing again. Coughing up water, Alex collapsed limply against him, gasping for air, her chest fighting for several breaths of air and holding on to her brother supporting her up. He was actually crying over her, squeezing her tightly with concern and holding her head up, realizing just how close he had come to losing her...

"Justin…" Alex murmured between gasps for air. "Where… How?"

"Hermione had a vision you were in danger…" He tried to fix her hair by pulling it out of her face. Alex looked over behind her and noticed a wet blonde mannequin in Samantha's clothes on the gym floor, the blonde sorceress's face frozen eternally into a state of surprise.


	8. Chapter 8

8

"Master Russo…" Albus Dumbledore sat at the table of the Great Hall of Hogwarts looking over the youth. With the famous wizard was Justin's other mentor, Professor Victorious Crumbs from Wiz-Tech, and Professor Minerva McGonagall, one of the teachers of Hogwarts. "Professor Danvers is correct that you are a very gifted young man, and one who will go very far, but as yet, I sense other things about you which you have not seen yourself. For one, you have excessive pride in all that you do, and yet, you are often blinded by the emotions of others. You have great knowledge, but little awareness. Hogwarts could make you a great wizard if you choose."

"Yes sir…"

"Justin," Crumbs spoke up. "You could be the greatest student to come out of Wiz-Tech. I love you as if you were my son, but I cannot bear to stand in your way as you strive to improve yourself. Hogwarts would definitely challenge you more than I could, but it would be a far harder path. Are you sure you are up to this?"

Justin had cleared his throat nervously. "Yes, sir…"

"You'd have to start out as a first-year wizard." McGonagall revealed. "You'd have to take the full courses starting from the beginning alongside much younger wizards. You'd have to study very hard before the new semester starts. You'd have to watch as the friends you have already made progress further and faster than yourself. Can you live through that?" She paused a moment. "Nothing you have learned at Wiz-Tech will help you here." Justin stood before them and lowered his head thinking about it.

"I hear Hogwarts calling to me." Justin replied before the three wizards. "And I am heeding to its call. However…" He paused again. "I am hearing another call. I hear my sister's voice, and she needs me. I almost lost my sister because I was not there for her." His eyes filled with tears. "I would do anything to be at your school, but… I cannot leave my sister alone. She needs someone to look after her when our parents are not there. As much as I would rather attend Hogwarts…" He responded emotionally. "I'm giving it up to be by my sister's side."

"It takes a strong heart to do what one knows is right…" Albus responded. "Justin Russo, you have made a very wise decision." He looked to Hagrid sitting at a chair at the bottom of the stairs beneath the teacher's table. The seven-foot giant reared himself up from the Gryffindor seats and gestured to Justin to follow him back out to the outside hall where his sister and Professor Danvers were waiting. Along the way, Justin looked up to the clouds and sunlight coming through the enchanted ceiling then gazed upon the flags representing the four houses on campus. Had he accepted this decision to come here, what house might he had been placed? In his mind's eye, he could just picture the Sorting Hat choke out "Griffindor!"

"Justin…" Danvers turned round to him out in the hall. "Well?" Sitting in the bench with her broken arm in a sling, Alex reared herself up to hear the news. Was she getting an extra room or not? She was hoping on the extra room, but she was also hoping Harper got her wish.

"I decided to stay at Wiz-Tech with Alex and Max." Justin revealed his choice but not his reasons. Alex cursed a bit under breath. At least Harper would enjoy the news.

"All, crud!" Alex was upset as she stood in her Wiz-Tech robes. "I was going to knock down the wall of my room and use your room as a closet!" She revealed her selfish materialistic side.

"Mrs. Russo…" Hagrid appeared in the door to the Great Hall and approached. "The committee has one question for you before they proceed with your evaluation. Do you even want to attend Hogwarts?"

"Not especially…" Alex flipped her hair over her shoulder with her left hand.

"Thank god!!! Oh, I mean…" Hagrid recomposed himself. "It's a shame. A real shame…." He started disappearing into the Great Hall to pass along her reply as his voice drew quiet. "For a second, I thought we'd have another Dracus Malfoy in Slitherin…" He was comparing her to one of their more obnoxious current students.

"Justin," Professor Danvers turned to his young ward. "Are you sure this is what you want? I mean, Hogwarts would serve your proud."

"I am very interested in Hogwarts…" Justin confessed. "But… I can't leave Alex behind. She's needs someone around who knows what they're doing."

"Oh, please!!!" Alex scoffed at that notion. "I so totally could have defeated Samantha if she hadn't broke my wand!"

"Oh, that reminds me…" Danvers stirred around in his satchel to produce a wand. "Here you go, Mrs. Russo…" Professor Danvers presented her with her wand back. "The goblins here do wonderful work!"

"It's my wand back together!!!" She grinned ear-to-ear waving it. "Thank you so much!" She gave him a light hug. At the far end of the hall, Severus Snape was leading Dracus Malfoy, but once Malfoy saw Alex, his face alighted and his cold little heart started pumping. Realizing his protégé was in love, Snape swatted at the boy to keep him focused.

"It's the least I could do considering the scuffle my daughter put you through." Danvers looked to her as if she were another of his daughters. "Well, let's get to Hogsmeade…" Danvers checked his pocket watch. "There is a wonderful little eatery in the village I think you two will like before I take you home. Plus, your father gave me enough money for whatever you two wanted at Honeydukes."

"What's Honeydukes?"

"What's Honeydukes?!!" Danvers was incredulous at Justin's query. "Why just the very best candy shop in the British Isles!! It's enough to have old Willie Wonka blowing steam out his ears!" He guided them along down the exterior steps to make the boat across to Hogsmeade on the other side of the loch.

"Um, uh, Professor…" Alex played a bit with her hair as she walked along. Ron Weasley crossed her path and had an immediate crush on her as well, but Harry just tugged him along with a light chuckle. Alex failed to notice him either. "What happened to Samantha? What'd she say when you changed her back?"

"Oh, I didn't change her back." Danvers confessed. "Both her mother and I have decided to leave her a mannequin for a while. We shipped her to her sister Sabrina in Las Vegas. She's using her to hold her clothes." Professor Danvers beamed to her. Sabrina was the one who looked like Britney Spears and played superhero while befuddling the Las Vegas CSIs.

"Okay, but why does Samantha look like Ashley Tisdale?" Alex asked about Samantha.

"Why do you look like Michayla?" Justin mumbled under breath on his way down the dock.

"Take that back!" Alex whipped her restored wand out from her sling. "You better take that back!!!"

END


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